Profile: Katie Grey

By Dawne Belloise 

Katie Grey grew up in Boulder back when it was still a cool little town on the edge of the foothills. It wasn’t too far of a leap to go from there to 8,865 feet and into the high country at the north end of the Gunnison Valley to become the area’s maker and purveyor of fine gin, Anthracite Spirits. She and her hubby Tim began distilling their Mountain Dry Gin, a contemporary-style, light and botanical gin, after moving here in 2022. 

Katie’s mom was a labor and delivery nurse who moved them to Boulder from Denver in 1995. Katie’s father passed away that same year. Katie got hooked on horses when she was 10 years old and that love for equines followed her beyond college years. “I hardly did anything else,” she smiles. She had started riding school on the outskirts of Boulder, leasing a horse while she took lessons and doing horse maintenance to help support her hobby. “I did barn chores, grooming and horse maintenance. I rode every day I could get my mom to take me out there. Literally, my whole world was eat, sleep, die for horses,” she says. Finally, at 16, her grandmother gifted her a horse of her own. She was competing in hunter/jumpers categories and traveled both statewide and some out of state. She graduated from Boulder High in 2007 and enrolled at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins.

At CSU, Katie pursued a curriculum for graphic design. “I didn’t participate in any school groups,” she says, and instead, “I drove down to North Boulder three times a week to go ride.” Katie remained a competitive equestrian all through college and worked for her riding coaches. After graduation in 2011, she realized her graphic design degree would yield a humble salary. “I didn’t want to sit at a desk with a starting salary of $35,000,” she says. “I still liked design, but I realized it was antithetical for the way I wanted to live my life.” After graduation, she was working for pennies, paying off her coaches and horse care costs. Primarily, caring for horses was her work, by riding others’ horses for them, packing trailers for horse shows and going to the competitions with them to make sure the horses were cared for.

While attending a competition in Las Vegas in 2015, Katie met a sales rep for a French saddle company, Voltaire Design, who needed someone to open up the Rocky Mountain territory. She began selling saddles all around Colorado and surrounding states, which became her career. She put in four years in sales and then became a regional manager for an additional four years, traveling all over the Midwest and the Central U.S. area. 

 Katie was living in Boulder with her now hubby, Tim, whom she met in 2015 and married at the end of 2019. Although Tim didn’t share her love of horses, Katie laughs that he gave it “a valiant effort.” She says that Crested Butte began trickling into their lives in 2015. They had run the summer Grand Traverse and after another race in Telluride, they took a detour stop over to CB during the wonderfully quiet September off-season. 

“We had done a trail run race and we were on the way back to Boulder and we wanted to do something fun. We fell in love with the area, watching the alpenglow off a deck at the base area. We had friends who had a second home in Pitchfork. We ended up calling a realtor and the first place we saw was a little condo in Riverbend and it was so affordable in 2017,” she says of the era just before the resort was bought, and before the COVID rush. They long-term rented the condo to locals but decided to move up in June of 2022 after their tenants moved out. Their intention was to stay just for the summer but with COVID lingering around the valley and Katie being able to work from home, they decided to move here.

Katie could work remotely and travel for work from CB, but she went to workshops in France twice since her company was based there. “The company was really intense with training,” she tells. “They also sell in Europe too and did training in both Europe and the U.S.,” where she helped lead training sessions in both. Katie was traveling 70% of the time, “so, I was always out of the valley. I moved here to be here, and I loved it so much.” Besides, she was tiring of the horse world even though she says, “Many of the people I met are wonderful but it’s not really reality. Tim and I had always talked about starting a business so we started looking into different avenues of what would make sense in CB.”  

As a result of their research, they wound up talking to Karen Hoskin, who still owned Montanya Rum distillery at the time. “She had just upgraded all her distilling equipment so she was selling all her used equipment.” They took that opportunity and bought Montanya’s equipment, figuring they could sell it if they couldn’t come up with a good plan. “We had been really enthusiastic about making high-end home cocktails, refining them in our own unique profiles.”

 Their ideas felt right, so they headed to a craft distillers conference in Kentucky. “We spoke to a number of very small producers. Everybody was so kind and open. We’ve run into no gatekeepers in this distiller’s world. Everybody just wants to share their knowledge and help one another,” she says, and adds that it’s not an easy industry. With her sales experience and graphic design background Katie felt she could market their product, and Tim had been working as a bartender in CB. In September of 2023, they began their Anthracite Spirits company, distilling their Mountain Dry Gin. “It’s more of a contemporary style, light and botanical gin. Most of the flavor comes from fresh lemon and lime zest. Gin needs to be distilled with juniper in it and it needs to be 40% ABV or higher.” Katie says that they chose gin in part because it can generally be bottled immediately, and also because it’s the fastest growing spirit segment in the U.S. market. 

The distillery is located in Riverland, and they opened their tasting room, Anthracite Lounge on Elk Avenue, in December of 2023. “It’s a bit unique when you consider what distilleries do and bartenders who make cocktails do, they’re usually pretty separate. But when we make drinks, a lot of the process begins at the point of distillation so we create the spirit or the liqueur with a particular profile. That way, we can really refine it and make what we feel is the best possible version of a cocktail.” 

They create their own liqueurs to complement their gin cocktails – a customer favorite white creme de cacao, an aperitif named Red Lady Bitter Red Liqueur, and they’re developing more. “We’re hoping to do a small batch of elderflower liqueur, the elderflowers have to be super fresh. We’re trying to give more premium options in making our cocktails, for people who are more discerning.” 

They recently created and released their first batch of Colorado Apple Brandy, made with Big B’s of Paonia. “We only made 30 bottles, fermenting 120 gallons of apple juice. We were quite happy with it for our first brandy. It was yummy. The apple flavor was so pungent, and we made a cocktail with it that was a big hit called The Fallback. We’re not shooting for the moon but our goal is to be able to make a good living doing this while giving locals the opportunity to make a good living as well so they can stay in the valley and enjoy what they’re doing.” 

Katie learned to ski when they moved to CB. She had sworn off skiing when, as a child, her dad took her down a black run and she was so petrified that she had to get down the mountain in a ski patrol toboggan. However, she figured, “When you move to CB you better know how to ski. I joke that I rode horses competitively for 25 years and in three years of snowboarding I got more concussions.” She adds that now she actually loves skiing, which she switched to when they moved here. “I always say that we moved here for the mountains and trails but stayed because of the people in the community.”

The Anthracite Lounge tasting room is open Tuesday through Saturday, and for information and hours visit their website at anthracitespirits.com